Bounce Rate 101 for Better SEO

By AnnMarie Minichiello
January 23, 2017

“Bouncing” refers to the amount of visitors who leave the website after only viewing the single page which they landed on. Bounce rate is an Internet marketing term used in web traffic analysis. It represents the percentage of visitors who bounce from your site. Bounce rates can be used to determine how effective a website is in performance. If a site has a high bounce rate, it is a strong indication that it isn’t holding the interest of many visitors. There is no minimum or maximum time by which a visitor must leave a site in order for their visit to be considered a bounce. What is considered a good or a bad bounce rate?

 

Bounce Rate Scale

26%-40% Excellent
41%-55% Above Average
56%-70% Average
70% and higher Bad

 

What Contributes To A High Bounce Rate?

There are several factors of your website that can increase your bounce rate. Some of the most important things to consider include:
 
Slow Load Time: If your landing page takes more than 3 seconds to load, chances are users will bounce. Today’s web audience wants to see things as quickly as one click, so if your site isn’t up to speed you’ll probably have a high bounce rate. Slow load times can also negatively impact your sites SEO.
 
Intrusive Advertising: When a user clicks onto your site and is bombarded by a loud, distracting ad that distract from your primary call to action, that user is probably going to bounce.
 
Single Page Site: Analytics will not recognize a page receiving multiple page views unless users reload that page. Because of this, single-page sites generally have high bounce rates.
 
Poor Content: Grammar and spelling errors are usually a turn off to the intellectual web-crawler. Make sure your content is well written and keeps to the topic at hand. It is also important to keep your content broken down into headings and subheadings. If your page is not easily skimmed, the user is bouncing.
 
User Behavior: Some things you just can’t control, like the behavior of your audience. For instance, if a user bookmarks a page on your site, visits it, and leaves, that is considered a bounce.
 
Poor Web Design: Outdated or busy web designs will immediately distract the users eye. This sort of confusion will cause the user to either look elsewhere, or quit surfing the internet all together.
 

How To Decrease Bounce Rate

To decrease your website’s bounce rate, it is essential to take the above factors into consideration. Make sure your website loads quickly, is free of obnoxious ads, buttons and pop-ups, and is chock full of strong content with relevant keywords and phrases.
 

Can I Check My Bounce Rate Online?

Yes, by visiting Google Analytics. The service of analyzing your website’s behavior is comprehensive and sign up is free.
 
Decrease Bounce Rates Now  

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